"My dear, I've grown wiser, as well as a good deal poorer. Nobody can deny that the Castle is desperately dull, entirely owing to the people who inhabit it; for it's a fine enough house. But they do occasionally have people to stay, though I don't know whether you've noticed that the same people seldom come twice. It's a house to go to. To that I've come—that I'm thankful for an invitation to dine at Pershore Castle. I'm not sure that I didn't even angle for it. I certainly intimated that if Edmund didn't think it good enough, the invitation was on no account to be withdrawn from Pam and me. I made eyes at her, and she gave in at once. She thinks I'm a very sweet woman, until she goes away from me, and then she's not so sure about it. Am I a sweet woman, Eleanor, or a bit of a cat? I'm never quite certain."
"You were a very sweet child," said Lady Eldridge, whose face had become rather serious during this speech. "I always loved you and always shall. And as long as you say everything you think to me...."
"Oh, my dear, I shall always do that. You're one of the few comforts left to me in life. I can't grumble to Edmund, or the children. Besides, you're so generous. I should never have had my little bit of London this year but for you. How I should have missed it! And how I enjoyed it! There is no doubt that one does enjoy pleasures that come to one unexpectedly more than those that one takes as a matter of course."
"Well, Cynthia, you know that until you have a house of your own again in London, ours is there for you to come to whenever you like. And for the girls too. It doesn't want saying, does it, dear? We've always been very close together. There was a time when I owed almost all my pleasures in life to you, and I don't forget how generous you were. We've been fortunate, Bill and I, and at a time when so many people have had to alter their way of living. It's nice to think that our good fortune is of use not only to ourselves; that those we love can share it with us. I suppose there aren't many people who are so close together as you and Edmund and Bill and I. And our children too. I can't imagine anything that would come between us."
"No," said Mrs. Eldridge. "I can't either. It's a great comfort to have you here. I don't know what we should do without you."
[CHAPTER III]
NORMAN
Norman Eldridge and his cousin Pamela detached themselves from the tennis players and strolled off through the bare blaze of the upper garden with its elaborate architecture of walls and steps and pavings and pergolas, and its bright, restless plantings, into the shade of the woods.